A Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision
May 16, 2010 by biotechbillboard.com
Product Description
1. My design is to show the manner wherein we perceive by sight the distance, magnitude, and situation of OBJECTS. Also to consider the difference there is betwixt the IDEAS of sight and touch, and whether there be any IDEA common to both senses.
2. It is, I think, agreed by all that DISTANCE, of itself and immediately, cannot be seen. For DISTANCE being a Line directed end-wise to the eye, it projects only one point in the fund of the eye, which point remains invariably the same, whether the distance be longer or shorter.
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George Berkeley (March 12, 1685 – January 14, 1753), also known as Bishop Berkeley, was an influential Irish philosopher whose primary philosophical achievement is the advancement of what has come to be called subjective idealism, summed up in his dictum, “Esse est percipi” (”To be is to be perceived”). Basically, the theory is that we can only directly know sensations and ideas of objects, not abstractions such as “matter”. He wrote a number of works, the most widely-read of which are his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713) (Philonous, the “lover of the mind”, representing Berkeley himself). In 1734 he published The Analyst, a critique of the foundations of science, which was very influential in the subsequent development of mathematics.
The city of Berkeley, California is named after him.
Rating: 5 / 5
This is a small press’ take on this classic work. The cover is the nicest looking part. There is a paragraph summary in typewriter set, or maybe old courier, that looks cheap. But the essay itself looks ok. Really not a bad book, and one who wants this work has to make choices, since there is no decent edition of Berkeley’s works. There is zero critical material in this adequate, if overpriced, reprint.
Bishop George Berkeley is the paradigm ‘idealist,’ and is perhaps the ‘whipping boy’ of philosophy, but is a remarkably ingenious and overlooked figure who took naive perceptual consciousness to its limits, setting the stage for Hume. His theory of vision paved the way for his critique of Lockean empiricism.
Rating: 3 / 5